


Temporary Love

by thepocketdragon



Series: Sing to me Instead [3]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Freeform, Songfic, bechloe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27840517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepocketdragon/pseuds/thepocketdragon
Summary: It is a truth universally acknowledged that, at some point in every young woman’s life, all of her girlfriends are suddenly in want of one of two things: a sparkling engagement ring or a baby.Beca's feelings on marriage aren't all that positive, but she knows she loves Chloe.Chloe just needs to know that Beca's sure this is forever.Established Bechloe. One shot.
Relationships: Chloe Beale & Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Series: Sing to me Instead [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021515
Comments: 11
Kudos: 80





	Temporary Love

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the 'Sing to me Instead' series in which I listen repeatedly to a song from Ben Platt's album and write whatever comes into my head!
> 
> Comments are, as always, very much appreciated.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, at some point in every young woman’s life, all of her girlfriends are suddenly in want of one of two things: a sparkling engagement ring or a baby.

The baby thing is something Beca Mitchell understands. It’s biological. It’s an urge that, since her mind allowed her to finally, guiltlessly, conjure up images of tiny, cherubic toddlers with deep blue eyes and flames of red hair, she has had herself. It’s one of the things that, when she thinks about the future, leaves her with a fizz of excitement in her gut. The problem is, she can’t help but imagine that same redheaded, blue-eyed kid a few years later, leaving one house in one state and climbing into the backseat of a car. Leaving to go and visit the ‘other family’ they have been forced to accept. She can’t help but imagine everything falling apart. She can’t help but worry about repeating history in some sick, cyclical way.

It’s the reason she doesn’t understand why all of her friends are suddenly weighing down their ring fingers, showing off bands laden with compromise and false promises amongst the glitter and gold. Marriage, to Beca, is a futile exercise. It only ever ends in tears. And debt. And sad children.

Still, when Aubrey proffers her left hand forwards and the sparkling gem on her finger catches the light, Beca tries to make her smile reach her eyes. She tries to sound happy, enthusiastic, when she’s asked to be a bridesmaid. She tries not to think too deeply about anything except the idea that Aubrey is happy, and that essentially- aside from the whole watching her friend committing herself to someone else for the entirety of the rest of her life thing- all she’s being asked to do is wear a nice dress to a fancy party with an open bar.

Chloe’s reaction is not a surprise to Beca. She squeals, honest to God squeals, and leaps out of the seat. The rest of the patrons in this far-too-fancy-for-them restaurant all glare in her direction, but she’s beyond caring. Chloe is weeping, openly, and clutching Aubrey to her in an embrace that reads more as ‘I’ve just saved the universe from certain doom’ than ‘I’ve decided to surrender to one man for the rest of my life and we’re celebrating by blowing thousands of dollars on a recreation of prom night in a hotel conference suite with an awful, patterned carpet.’

///

Chloe Beale loves love. It’s not a surprise. It never has been. Chloe has always felt everything much more strongly and love is no exception. She has always found comfort in the warmth of being known, of being understood completely by another person. She has always cherished connection and every relationship, with friends or more romantic partners, is met with the same level of adoration.

Chloe is warm. She’s always been a person people gravitate towards. She’s got a million-dollar smile and her wide eyes seem to draw people in. Her mother always joked that she had some kind of gravitational pull.

It’s possibly why nobody ever truly leaves.

Despite relationships ending and friends moving on or moving away, Chloe’s list of contacts on her phone ranges from the girl she sat next to on the first day of kindergarten through to the guy she didn’t even kiss at the end of their one, failed date (he still sends a Christmas card. He now addresses it to both her and Beca). In Chloe’s world, love is forever. No matter what kind of love it ends up being, once you’re in the circle, you’re in.

It’s part of the reason she loves weddings. Weddings are, to Chloe, a fairytale moment. They are a time to turn to the world and shout from the rooftops how much you love somebody. They are a celebration of the beauty of unity, of eternal affection. She sees the happiness on each and every bride and groom’s face, sees the subtle tears they brush aside as they make their vows, and she feels as if her heart might burst.

It started as a childlike fascination, an adoration for pretty dresses and posies of delicately arranged flowers. Weddings were, to a young Chloe, the epitome of everything from her favourite fairytales come to life. There was a prince, a princess and everything was about true love. The idea that there is one person in the universe you are meant to find, or who is meant to find you, and- when you do- you know instinctively that it’s the forever kind of love.

Chloe has only ever felt it once.

Which is the way it should be.

It should have maybe come as more of a surprise than it did but, for Chloe, the minute she finally let herself look- truly look- into Beca’s deep blue eyes, she knew.

She knows Beca knows, too. The problem is, there’s something holding her back.

Chloe, though, Chloe will wait.

She’ll wait forever, even though it isn’t easy, because loving Beca Mitchell makes more sense than anything else.

She can’t help but want to shout it from the rooftops.

Holding a bouquet of flowers.

In a white dress.

///

The topic comes up every now and again.

Usually, it’s a well-meaning colleague or a teasing friend.

This time, it’s Beca’s Dad.

“So, I hear Aubrey’s getting married.”

They’ve stopped off at his house, just off the edge of the Barden campus, for dinner before they head back to the airport. It’s strange, Beca thinks, to be so comfortable in his house. To be comfortable sitting on his leather Chesterfield couch with Chloe’s fingers laced in hers, their conjoined hands resting on her lap.

“She’s asked us both to be bridesmaids.”

Chloe’s response is still laced with fresh excitement. She doesn’t notice how Beca rolls her eyes, but her father does.

“Come on, Bec. You can’t still… I know you hated the dress you wore to my wedding, but that was years ago, now. You’re almost thirty. Surely you can just suck it up and enjoy sharing Aubrey’s happiness with her?”

Beca finds it hilarious that her dad still thinks that the miserable glare she shot him every time their eyes made contact throughout his wedding day was anything to do with the dress she was forced into. She can still feel the burning anger, the disdain, she had carried around with her in her stomach the entire day. She can still hear the dull laughter and the congratulations and the rustling of layer upon layer of horrific, peach-coloured taffeta. She remembers catching Sheila’s eye the moment her brain conjured up the term ‘step monster’. It was the only time she genuinely smiled the entire day.

She knows she can stand there, on ceremony, and smile through Aubrey’s day. She knows that, as she watches one of her closest friends walk down the aisle, she will feel happy for her. The issue comes when she thinks about what happens _after._ What happens once the balloons have deflated and the gifts are (let’s face it) listed on eBay and real life gets hard.

That’s the part that scares her.

Because, unfortunately, Beca knows firsthand what it feels like when it all goes wrong. She knows how complicated it gets when you realise, sixteen years and a kid later, that the ‘one’ wasn’t the one at all; that the ‘one’ is actually a pharmaceutical sales rep from Greensboro, Georgia with brassy blonde highlights and a penchant for impossibly long acrylic nails.

She’s forgiven him, over time, for the way in which he left. She’s tried her best to understand it and to learn to live with the past and accept that- now- her dad is trying and Sheila’s not so bad and her mom is happier than she ever was when they were together. The lasting legacy, though, is the thing she can’t forget. She has memories no teen should have. Not just of the shouting or the slamming doors and revving engines, but of being hauled in front of attorneys, played like a pawn in a battle for stupid things like lawn chairs and the antique piano that sat in the dining room. She was broken in two, torn between two houses. She has been burned and the scars are still there. Sometimes, they still hurt.

“She’s in love, you know what that feels like.”

She does.

She really does.

All in all, Beca can’t help but continue to be surprised by how easily she managed to fall in love. After everything she witnessed, everything she learned about relationships before she was grown up enough to truly put it into context, she fell wholeheartedly for Chloe Beale.

She knew from the very beginning that she was falling. She knew it was love. It just took her a while to say it, to admit it even to herself. But she was certain.

The way Chloe’s name sits on her heart seemed to make sense from the very beginning. Chloe is different in every way and Beca has never found a part of her she doesn’t adore. She fought her urges at first, finding the same fear still slowly burning away within her now to be too powerful to quash. She was scared. Scared of what it would mean to finally _be_ that person with Chloe. Scared of the expectations and the overwhelming need to protect her and hold her close. Scared that, in typical Beca Mitchell style, she would ruin it all.

The problem is that, when life gets hard, Beca shares her father’s instincts. She’s a runner. She uses escape like medicine. When given the choice between fight and flight, Beca’s most primal urge will always be to take to the skies. That’s what scares her. It isn’t the idea of loving Chloe. No, that part is easy. It’s the ever-present, lingering fear that she will hurt her. That, if she makes a promise as huge as ‘I will love you forever’, there’s a temptation of fate that hovers around the words, threatening to shake the foundations of the sturdiest, safest, most comforting part of Beca’s entire life.

“Come with me.”

Beca looks up to see Chloe stood before her, hand outstretched.

“Let’s go for a walk before dinner.”

Suddenly, the walls feel as if they are closing in.

The urge to fly away gets a little stronger.

///

Waiting has never been a skill Chloe Beale has possessed. It’s not that she’s impatient, it’s more that she finds it difficult to situate herself in the grey area between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ when she knows which side she should be sat on. Waiting, indecision, makes her antsy.

It’s even worse when she can see the problem.

When she knows what needs to be said.

It’s that impatience, that need to solve, that results in her dragging Beca out of Dr Mitchell’s front door and down a lush pathway towards the edge of the university’s enormous lake. It’s a lake they both know well. They have shared many conversations on its shores, have made memories against the backdrop of quietly lapping water.

Beca’s hand tightens around hers as Chloe moves to sit down.

She tries her best to be reassuring, but words are pushing to escape from her lips and she needs to keep her focus in order to get them out in the right order.

As soon as Beca sits down, Chloe begins.

“I thought you might need some space. Some, ah, somewhere to breathe.” Beca’s nod tells her her instincts were right. After three years of dating, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Chloe smiles sympathetically. As she searches Beca’s eyes, she can’t help but question why this feels like such a big deal. Why, even though they are together and Chloe’s certain that this girl right here is the absolute love of her life, the main sensation in her gut when ‘Beca’ and ‘marriage’ are mentioned in the same sentence isn’t excitement, but rejection.

“Look,” her tongue brushes over her lips, “I don’t…. I don’t think there’s a right time to have this conversation but your dad kind of brought up the subject so I’m going for it.”

Beca swallows visibly. Her hand reaches up to brush her hair off her forehead. It’s a nervous habit. Chloe tries her best to ignore the wave of guilt. Instead she smiles.

“I love you, Beca. And, well, I respect that you have your views on things and that there’s a history to… well… to your opinions on marriage.”

Beca’s fingers begin to pick at the hem of her jeans.

“I’m happy if we decide that’s not for us. If it’s something you don’t seen in our future, I’m fine with that. I… I’ll just find another excuse to have a big party with all of our friends.”

Chloe glances to the corner of Beca’s mouth, hoping for a sign that she might at least _want_ to smile. Beca’s eyes soften slightly and, finally, she makes eye contact.

“I just…” Chloe’s hands are as busy as Beca’s. She absentmindedly picks strands of dry grass and sprinkles them back onto the ground as she thinks how to phrase what she wants to say. “I just need to ask. I… I need to know if you don’t want to… to commit to me because you want an easy out.” The words land with a thud. Chloe feels her mouth go dry. She averts her eyes. “Is it because you think that, one day, you won’t want to be with me anymore? Will… will there be a day where you decide you want someone else?”

It’s more truthful than Chloe had anticipated. It’s laced with emotion and, if she’s honest, desperation. It’s the thought that has been lingering at the back of her mind and now, suddenly, it’s hovering above them in the warm Georgia air.

Beca is silent. It’s not unusual, but it is uncomfortable.

Chloe does what she always does. She fills the silence.

Fills it with the truth.

“I don’t know if you think I’m insecure for asking. I… I don’t know if you think I’m weak for needing you. I’m not, though. I’m not weak, Bec. I’m just being honest.” Her hand reaches back down into the grass, her eyes firmly on the lake ahead of them. “If this isn’t it for you, if something needs to change, tell me. If _I_ need to change, tell me. I don’t think that’s what you want, though. I don’t think that’s what this is. I… I just think you’re scared and, believe me, I get it, but it’s me. It’s just you and me and, honestly? I can’t think of anything less frightening than that.”

///

One of the things that scares Beca about Chloe is how perceptive she is. How, without any prompting, she _knows_ what is going on inside her head. How, without warning and without self-doubt, she will say whatever it is. Out loud.

It’s also one of the things Beca loves the most about her.

It’s one of the reasons they work so well as a pair.

It’s one of the reasons she has always known, since the moment they _finally_ addressed the lesbian-elephant-in-the-room, that this relationship, this love, was something special.

Forever.

Chloe’s words are still echoing in Beca’s head as the plane descends.

They roll around, like a ticker tape, in her dreams that night.

They come out in her songs, in her music, until she can’t deal with it anymore.

Until she has no choice but to _do_ something.

Spontaneity has never been a huge part of Beca’s life. Even if it’s not communicated to anyone, even if it’s a silent scheme she conjures up in her own mind, there is always a plan.

_“You and I both know this is different. It… it’s not like any of the relationships I’ve had in the past. It’s not like yours, either. It’s certainly nothing like the relationships your dad has had. What we have is different to that. I can feel it.”_

This time, there isn’t much time to plan.

There’s a cursory google search on her lunch break, a quick phone call, and she’s out the door and onto the busy streets of New York City as soon as she finishes work for the day.

_“I know we’ll make mistakes. I know it won’t always be amazing, but I think it’ll be pretty close, Bec. I think this- us- is as close as we’ll ever get to perfect.”_

The door swings open and a bell jingles lightly above her head. Beca steps into the space and smiles at the woman at the front desk.

“Beca Mitchell. I… I made an appointment to see a guy called Billy?”

She’s ushered back and is being offered a seat and a drink before she can truly comprehend the decision she’s making.

Surprisingly, when the gravity of it finally falls, it doesn’t feel that heavy at all.

_“You gave me your heart, you know. That’s not something I’ll ever take lightly. I… I can tell you, even now, that I will still love you after you’re gone. There’s always going to be this piece of my heart with your name printed across it. Because you’re important. You’re special.”_

She leaves feeling _different,_ somehow.

Her left arm hangs heavy as she wraps her right around it, making herself small enough to squeeze between people on her way through to the subway platform.

She looks around at the other people waiting and wonders if they’re in love. If, in their world, they have found someone who makes them feel the way she does. If they’ve got a Chloe all of their own.

She wonders if they can tell she’s in love.

She wonders if they know how it feels to be so scared and yet so sure at the same time.

As she boards the train, Chloe’s words- her final words to her that day on the lake before they had headed home- are echoing in her head.

_“I know you’re always going to think that love goes away, that’s good until it’s gone. Life has taught you that, but you show me every day how wrong that was and you show me every day just how much you_ can _love. I feel it, Bec. I… I know you feel it to. I guess that’s why I’m saying it out loud; why I’m asking you. If it’s marriage you don’t like, that’s fine. I just need to know. I just… I need to be able to know- to see, somehow- that this is forever for you, too.”_

///

Beca’s late.

She’s usually out the door on time on a Monday. Beca hates Mondays.

It’s only been thirty minutes but Chloe’s already checked to see if there are any delays on the subway line. Hell, she’s even typed the name of the street where Beca’s office is into Twitter to see if there’s anything news-worthy going on that might explain why she’s standing in an empty apartment.

There’s a growing sense of dread in her gut. It’s heavy and it’s cumbersome and Chloe knows it’s filled with all of the things she said, out loud, at the lake. All of the things she should have kept trapped in her head, trapped behind her smile.

It doesn’t take much for her to begin to spiral.

She’s convinced herself that Beca hates her, that ‘I would like to be with you forever’ has somehow been misconstrued as ‘I would like you to leave please’ and that she’s going to have to find a new place to live. She’s convinced that Beca’s spending her evening looking for an apartment for herself. Somewhere far away.

Then the door opens.

“Sorry I’m late.”

One look in Beca’s eyes and Chloe feels every ridiculous, anxious thought melt away. She feels the rock in her gut suddenly get a little lighter. She feels like she can breathe.

Before she knows what is happening, she rushing towards Beca and wrapping her arms tightly around her. She’s pulling her close, pressing her lips to her cheek and letting her hands drift down until her fingers find the cuffs of Beca’s jacket, seeking out her hands.

She’s rubbing her thumb over her hand when she hears it.

A wince.

Looking up, she feels her eyes go wide.

Beca grimaces and pulls her hand away.

“Bec, wha…?”

Her eyes follow Beca’s fingers down to her sleeve. She watches as it’s pulled lower, until the entire jacket is crumpled in a pile on the floor. Beca flexes her fingers a few times as she rolls up her sleeve.

And then she sees it.

Her mouth, she thinks, forms a perfect circle.

Her eyes probably do the same.

“What did you _do_?”

It’s accusatory.

She can’t help it. The adrenaline, the anxiety, is back. It crashes over her like a wave.

Beca pulls back the layers covering her forearm. She peels and peels until she’s holding a ball of saran wrap in her right hand and is tilting her left arm upwards until it catches the light.

Chloe sees it and she gasps.

“Bec!”

There, in startling contrast against her pale-white skin, is a ladybug. A ladybug that, just about, matches the one drawn in ink on Chloe’s own wrist.

“Wha… why?”

There’s a look in Beca’s eye, then. It’s a look of certainty. Of love. It’s _everything_ and yet Beca shrugs like it’s the most trivial thing in the world as she says the words that change it all. That slot the final piece into place.

“I wanted to show you I was serious. I wanted you to see that… it’s forever, Chloe.”

///

There are tears in her eyes as the gap between them closes. Beca feels one escape, dancing its way down her cheek as Chloe caresses the edge of her jaw and captures her lips.

Beca sighs into the kiss, pouring into it everything she wants to say.

It’s a kiss that means _I’m here_ and _I’m yours_ and _I’m in._

It’s a kiss that means forever.

Beca knows she’s been burned. She knows the scars from her past will never truly go away. But they will fade. They will fade in time but her love for Chloe won’t.

Because Chloe _is_ love.

Chloe is _everything._

Chloe is _forever._

It hits her then. It hits her that ring isn’t a burden. It weighs heavy with meaning, with commitment, but Beca’s strong enough to carry that. She’s strong enough because it’s _Chloe_ she’s sharing the load with.

Chloe who, since she got home, has not taken her eyes off of the new addition to Beca’s tattoo collection. Chloe who is looking at her with such purity, such joy, that Beca wishes she could bottle it and carry it with her.

She sees Chloe’s smile and feels a bubbling sensation within herself. It’s a fizzing, right in her chest. An excitement, an anticipation, an adoration. It’s a feeling that comes from seeing that beautiful smile- the best smile in the entire world- and knowing she put it there.

Beca wants to make Chloe happy. It’s possibly all she ever wants. Especially when she smiles like that.

She knows there’s a way.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, at some point in every young woman’s life, all of her girlfriends are suddenly in want of one of two things: a sparkling engagement ring or a baby.

As Beca feels the slight ache of her freshly-tattooed skin, feels the way a little piece of Chloe is slowly becoming a part of her, she gets it.

Luckily for her, Billy the tattoo artist had recommended some really good jewellers.

It might take a little time, but she’s sure.

This is not a temporary love.

She knows.

This is forever.


End file.
